The present invention relates to brush making machines in general, for example, to brush making machines of the type disclosed in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,111,491, and more particularly to improvements in apparatus for storing and manipulating bundles which contain batches of wrapped bristles preparatory to opening of the bundles and the admission of the thus exposed batches into a magazine.
It is well known to store a supply of parallel bristles in a magazine whose open end is adjacent to a transfer member serving to gather tufts of bristles and to transfer such tufts to an inserting station where the tufts are implanted in the body of a brush. In many presently known brush making machines, the supply of bristles in the magazine is replenished by hand. Relatively long bundles, each of which contains a batch of parallel bristles within the confines of a suitable envelope, are cut to length (i.e., subdivided into a plurality of shorter bundles) and the thus obtained short or relatively short bundles are temporarily stored in cartons or other types of receptacles. The cartons are transferred to the magazine and their contents are removed when necessary, the removed bundles are relieved of their wrappers, and the thus obtained batches of exposed parallel bristles are inserted into the magazine. The just described procedure of manually feeding batches of bristles into a magazine is time-consuming, complex, tiresome and expensive. Moreover, the operation of the tuft forming and transferring tool must be interrupted whenever the attendant inserts a fresh batch into the magazine. Unless the bundles are very large, the supply of bristles in the magazine must be replenished at frequent intervals so that the sum total of down times is quite substantial and the output of the brush making machine is low. While it is conceivable to enlarge the magazine so that the latter can store a relatively large supply of bristles, the dimensions of the magazine cannot be increased at will because this could affect the accuracy with which the bristles are stored therein and hence the accuracy of the formation of tufts. The bristles in the magazine cannot be compacted with a substantial force because this would prevent the transfer member from gathering acceptable tufts, i.e., this would adversely influence the quality of the ultimate products. It has been found that proper orientation and the absence of excessive compacting of bristles in the magazine can be ensured only if the magazine is relatively small so that the mutual positions of bristles can be adequately controlled in each and every portion of the magazine.
Published European patent application No. 0 034 866 discloses an apparatus which is designed to supply bristles to the tuft gathering station of a brush making machine. Such station is defined by a magazine which comprises several compartments for loose bristles. The apparatus of this printed publication is quite complex, bulky and expensive. Moreover, the orientation of bristles in the compartments of the magazine is not entirely satisfactory and the introduction of bristles into as well as their evacuation from such compartments is problematic.
German Offenlegungsschrift No. 26 43 222 discloses a brush making machine wherein the delivery of batches of bristles to the magazine is automated. Bundles of batches of bristles in suitable envelopes are delivered to an opening station which is adjacent to the magazine and which can admit batches (e.g., by gravity) into the inlet of the magazine so that the admitted batches can be engaged and compacted by mobile tamping instrumentalities. The bundle supplying apparatus of the machine which is disclosed in this German printed publication is rather complex and its capacity is limited. Moreover, the reliability of the apparatus is not sufficiently high.